The bear swats him aside, claws raking across his chest, sending him crashing into the far wall with a scream before knocking the camera to the ground and crushing it.
Mrs. Ashworth fumbles in her handbag, pulling out a canister of pepper spray, but before she even gets it into her palm, the bear reaches her. One hard blow to the head, and she crumples, red trickling down the side of her frozen face as she lies there unconscious.
Mr. Ashworth tries to run, scrambling toward the bedroom, as if he has any chance of escaping.
The bear is singularly focused, catching Ashworth before he even makes it three steps. His scream is high and thin, and cut brutally short as the beast’s huge body towers over him, using one dinner-plate sized paw to crush his leg and pin him in place.
When I gasp, the bear’s huge head swivels to look at me, and I freeze, afraid to breathe, my body shaking like a leaf.
Its anger seems to reignite when it scans the room, lingering on the camera. It couldn’t... understand what was going on in here, could it?
Kozlov clutches car keys as he crawls toward the shattered doorway, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
The bear growls, low and terrible, as it stalks toward him.
“Please.” Kozlov gasps. “I have money…”
Speaking was a mistake.
Reminded of his presence, the bear’s posture shifts, the muscles along its shoulders bunching as it turns back toward him.
With a bellow of rage, the bear grabs Kozlov by the leg and drags him outside into the darkness.
Screams echo through the forest, high and panicked. Desperate. Then, finally, just silence.
The ropes cut into my wrists as I struggle to sit up, my mind struggling to process what has just happened.
There could be more of Kozlov’s men on their way. I have to get up.
I roll off the mattress and crawl toward the nearest guard’s body, trying not to look at the damage the bear inflicted. My stomach lurches, but I force myself to search his leather jacket, now sticky and slick with blood, until my fingers close around a folding knife.
Cutting as fast as I can, the rope fights me, but finally, it parts. I rub my raw wrists, wincing at the pain as circulation returns. My gaze lands on the glint of metal, Kozlov’s keys, halfway across the floor, as a shadow fills the doorway.
With the knife still clutched in my hand, I freeze, expecting to see the bear return. Instead, a man steps through the splintered frame.
A naked man. Huge, muscular, and covered from head to toe in smeared blood.
My breath catches as he moves into the light. Tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and dark hair that I’ve seen before. But it’s his brown eyes, filled with concern, that make my heart stop.
And on his shoulder, a fresh wound. Bleeding. Right where Kozlov’s bullet hit the bear.
“Bodhi,” I whisper.
He came. I knew he would.
He stands there motionless, blood dripping from his hands onto the hardwood floor. His chest heaves with ragged breaths, and there’s something wild in his expression, something that’s not quite the man I know.
“Emma.” His voice is husky. “Are you hurt? Did he…” His eyes take in my torn dress, the rope marks on my wrists, and the chaos surrounding us before he squeezes them shut and presses the heels of his hands against them.
“I’m okay.” The words come out shaky. I struggle to my feet on shaky legs. “Your shoulder. He shot you.”
I want to run to him, to run my hands over his tanned skin and make sure he really is here, but my brain is still trying to reconcile what I think is going on with the reality I know.
That men are men and bears are bears.
“You’re safe now,” he says, taking a careful step toward me, hands raised as if he’s approaching a frightened animal. “They’re not going to hurt you ever again.”
I look at the blood covering his skin, at the wound still seeping from his shoulder, and the impossibility of the truth that’s staring me in the face.
